NEWSLETTER CLEANAIRBXL Hello! Thank you (again) for signing the petition for clean air in Brussels! While you might have thought we’ve gone a bit quiet, we actually have been very busy and have been having some major impacts, meaning we actually had no time to update you on all the exciting stuff that has been happening :) ! Apologies for that! WE NEED YOUR HELP TO BE SUCCESSFUL [If you don’t have time to read all of the below, here is the 3 second version:] We’re making waves, but we need to do more. So we need your help! Please share the campaign and the petition with your family, friends and colleagues. We have 2 more weeks ahead of the Government’s vote on the plan to really beef up the numbers - if each of you find two more signatories we can meet the magic 10.000 number! THE FULL UPDATE After many people asked us to continue build pressure after the consultation exercise on the Brussels Air-Climate-Energy (PACE) plan was finished, we decided to organise a number of actions to show how bad the air really is in Brussels, so that the government voting on this plan would know that we are dead serious about wanting better air. So let us fill you in a little bit on on all the exciting stuff we’ve been up to and what we have achieved so far on cleaning up the air in the city we love. WHAT HAVE WE DONE SO FAR 1. We’ve started gathering our own air pollution data. Even though we knew the situation is not good in Brussels – Belgium is being taken to court by the European Commission for breaching agreed EU air quality law – we wanted to check this for ourselves. We borrowed a measuring device for Ultra Fine Particles (UFPs) and took it with us on our way to work, when dropping our kids, in front of our houses. We should have been prepared, but we were shocked. If above 50,000 qualifies as pollution, we registered on several occasions pollution levels of 200.000 and more. Our actions were covered by TV Brussel (http://www.brusselnieuws.be/nl/video/tvbrussel/burgerbeweging-meet-luchtvervuiling-gevolgen-draag-je-je-hele-leven-mee). These findings made us only more determined to fight for better air. At times we felt as if our heads were in a permanent polluted bubble. 2.We’ve organised a media stunt to catch the attention of press and politicians, and Brussels media are now following our campaign. We got coverage in the major French speaking newspaper last week for our campaign. On the day of the parliamentary debate on the PACE plan, we dressed up like waiters and stood outside of the Parliament, offering dirty water to parliamentarians, which they of course did not want to drink! Our message was: ‘you wouldn’t drink dirty water, but we’re breathing more than 10,000 litres of dirty air a day in Brussels’! La Libre (De l’eau sale pour les deputes http://www.lalibre.be/regions/bruxelles/de-l-eau-sale-pour-les-deputes-560ed3a835700fb92f616efb) and DH (Un verre d’eau sale monsieur le depute? http://www.dhnet.be/regions/bruxelles/un-verre-d-eau-sale-monsieur-le-depute-560e49e735700fb92f5e4edf) wrote about it, as well as Brusselsnieuws (Burgerbeweging voor Schone Lucht schenkt troebel water aan politici http://www.dhnet.be/regions/bruxelles/un-verre-d-eau-sale-monsieur-le-depute-560e49e735700fb92f5e4edf). We’ve been in the media several times over summer too. 3. We wrote letters to politicians, and they are feeling the pressure! Ahead of the parliamentary debate on Friday 2 october, CleanAirBXL sent letters with our concerns and demands to all 87 Brussels parliamentarians, as well as to Minister President Vervoort. During the debate, several deputies mentioned CleanAirBXL, and several references were made to our demands, directly challenging the Minister for Environment, Ms Celine Fremault, to improve the plan with clearer priorities, results, timelines and budgets. You can read the report of the debate here. We also had several responses from politicians requests to meet. >>> FIRST RESULTS <<< Last week, Minister for the Environment, Celine Fremault, made the announcement that the most polluting cars would no longer be allowed into Brussels. See here for coverage in Le Soir: http://www.lesoir.be/1011136/article/actualite/regions/bruxelles/2015-10-08/fremault-veut-filtrer-voitures-polluantes-bruxelles, here in Brusselnieuws (http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/957/Binnenland/article/detail/2483699/2015/10/09/Minister-Fremault-wil-ecovignet-in-Brussel.dhtml stating that the new measures were due to citizen’s pressure :) ) and in Het Laatste Nieuws. TeleBruxelles had a debate about it (http://www.telebruxelles.be/emissions/m-le-mag-de-la-redac/). The proposal is to introduce this through an eco-vignette. CleanairBXL appreciated the efforts, as long as there are guarantees that it will help reduce air pollution and at last ensure Brussels respects EU air quality law. Brussels is already 5 years late in implementing EU law which itself is 2.5 less strict than what the World Health Organisation’s guidelines recommend. We will be following this, and will keep you informed! We are delighted that together with you, we managed to make such an important shift in the debate about air quality in Brussels. WHAT WILL WE DO NEXT? We will be watching carefully what the final Air-Climate-Energy plan will contain and will be following the newly announced measure closely. What we want is for Brussels to meet European air quality law as soon as possible and respect air quality guidelines set by the World Health Organisation by 2020. That means concrete commitments of year-on-year pollution reduction, and actual plans that are timed and budgeted for. We don’t want to wait another five years to breathe better air, we want measures already next year. And if the plan fails to live up to the needed ambition, we are considering the possibility of taking legal action. WHAT CAN YOU DO? We want to keep increasing the numbers on the petition ahead of the government vote, so please share and talk about the campaign in the next two weeks (and beyond). You can also print your own flyers and posters (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxRGesyk_kC0c01MZkxWVl96cjQ). We still have a lot of work to do – spread the campaign, get new voices into the debate, make sure the plan is implemented once it is approved, and, eventually, that the communes don’t start blocking it once approved! We hope to be able to count on your continued support. Karen, Karin, Lies, Annika and the rest of the CleanAirBXL team ABOUT US: CleanAirBXL is a non partisan Brussels citizen movement that campaigns for clean air to protect our health. We started with a group of concerned mothers, but many concerned citizens have joined us now. More about us on www.cleanairbxl.be MORE: EUROPEAN AIR QUALITY Help support stricter European air quality rules! Current European standards are 2.5 times less strict than what the World Health Organisation recommends, and legislation is under way to revise them. Campaigners want to put pressure on European Parliamentarians through a ‘Thunderclap’ on twitter. How to do it? Go to the Thunderclap website here: http://thndr.it/1P1cDot. Once you are on the webpage you can click on ‘support with Facebook’, ‘support with Twitter’ or ‘support with Tumblr’. After clicking your preferred medium, you will then see a message that will be made public, together with many others – on 21 October at midday. You simply click on ADD MY SUPPORT.